This invention is an improvement of a prior invention of applicant disclosed, described and claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,315,282, issued on Feb. 9, 1982.
The prior invention disclosed a video imaging and analysis system having multiple inputs including, for example, a video camera, a video cassette recorder, and the like, each input of which could be processed and analyzed using a variety of electronic marking circuits for purposes of creating a forty-eight K digital bit plane overlay, stored in memory. Any or all of the video images and the bit plane could be simultaneously displayed on one or more output displays.
Using the prior invention a 48K memory was employed which enabled the display of 48K pixels (picture elements) of information arranged in a conventional 3.times.4 aspect ratio raster display format thereby yielding one hundred ninety-two lines of display each containing two hundred fifty-six pixels.
Using the original forty-nine thousand, one hundred fifty-two pixels or picture elements did not take advantage of nor was it affected by interleaving or interlacing of the scanned lines on the raster display. An object of the invention was to obtain square pixels for accuracy of measurement analysis and consequently the first picture element was displayed in both even and odd line scans of the display.
Use of the prior invention has demonstrated a need, in some instances, for higher resolution for purposes of measurement and analysis. In addition, having only one digital bit plane overlay required repeated analysis steps to identify and analyze different spatial or other features of the analog video image being analyzed.
These and other limitations of the prior invention are overcome by the multiple bit plane imaging and analysis system of the present invention.